3rd European Biblio/Poetry Therapy Conference
Pilgrims of the Page: Tavern, Road, Shrine
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The 3rd European Biblio/Poetry Therapy Conference will take place in Canterbury — the city made famous by Chaucer's tales of pilgrimage. It is shaped by three guiding metaphors:
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The Tavern — a designated place of welcome, conversation, and shared humanity
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The Road — the unfolding journey of practice, dialogue, and discovery through workshops and presentations
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The Shrine — curated moments of reflection, insight, and integration
Across two main days, with pre- and post-conference events, we invite participants to balance learning with listening, structure with spaciousness, and professional exchange with human presence.
This is a conference for those who believe that poems and stories are companions on the way and that biblio/poetry therapy is, at heart, a practice of healing and care.
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Read more on ideas and practices that have inspired us on our blog page.
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Keynote speakers
Neil Astley
Neil Astley is an English publisher, editor and writer. He is best known as the founder of the poetry publishing house Bloodaxe Books, which he founded in 1978 after graduating from Newcastle University. He received an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry in 1982, and was given an honorary D.Litt by Newcastle University for his work with Bloodaxe in 1995. He has published two poetry collections and two novels, The End of My Tether (Flambard, 2002; Scribner, 2003), shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and The Sheep Who Changed the World (Flambard, 2005), and over twenty anthologies, notably the Staying Alive series, and four collaborations with Pamela Robertson-Pearce, Soul Food (2007) and Soul Feast (2024), and the DVD-books In Person: 30 Poets (2008) and In Person: World Poets (2017). He is a Visiting Fellow at Newcastle University and a patron of Ledbury Poetry Festival (after many years as a trustee), and was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. Neil has been credited with revolutionising and democratising poetry publishing in Britain by his inclusiveness.
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Mel Perry
Mel Perry is a poet, spoken word performer and therapeutic writing facilitator from Wales. She holds an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes and has a background in public health and substance misuse. She is Chair of Lapidus International, the UK words and writing for wellbeing organisation, and co-director of write4word CIC. About her research she relates: 'All of the research that I have formally conducted has come from my practice and curiosity – as a manager, as a health promotion specialist and as a writing practitioner. Our work is rich and diverse in styles of working, in cultural influences, in the settings within which we work and in the issues of communities and individuals we address. As we reflect on our practice we can adapt in the moment and in future. We can use our skills in reflection to interrogate and improve our own individual practice, we can explore that with each other and share this more widely across our community.'
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Organising team
Anne Taylor
Anne is a teacher, poet, former journalist, therapeutic writing practitioner, group facilitator and mentor. Her particular interests are in writing in medicine and healthcare, somatic writing and the intersection between creativity and self-exploration. She has an MA in Creative Development and Personal Development from the University of Sussex.
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Mariana Casale
Mariana brings together mental health, literature and cultural criticism to support self-awareness, and promote wellbeing and connection using literary texts. She works at the University of Manchester, and also has a biblio-therapeutic practice. She holds an MA in English Literature, Culture & Modernity (London) and a PhD in Latin American Cultural Studies (Manchester). She has lived in the UK for three decades, but is from Argentina, where a part of her heart will always live.
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Eduard Heyning
As co-director of the Poetry Practice, Eduard is the conference project manager behind the scenes, looking after this website. He will check your registration, proposal and payment, and answer your questions! Eduard is from the Netherlands, where he was manager of cultural events before he moved to the UK. He holds a PhD in philosophy but struggles to understand the logic of web-design.
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Victoria Field
Victoria Field is a writer, researcher and poetry therapist based in Canterbury. She has published poetry, fiction, memoir, prize-winning translation, and has had two plays professionally produced. She is a sessional academic at Canterbury Christ Church University where her doctoral studies examined narratives of transformation in pilgrimage.
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Mel Perry
Mel Perry is a poet, spoken word performer and therapeutic writing facilitator from Wales. Her third poetry collection, Mineral Wealth, explores the influence of her maternal grandmother and will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2026. She is Chair of Lapidus International, the UK words and writing for wellbeing organisation, and co-director of write4word CIC.
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Jon Sayers
Jon is a London-based poet, psychodynamic coach and bibliotherapy practitioner with a particular interest in the ideas of Carl Jung. His poems have been published in leading UK journals and anthologies, and his radio play, A World Full of Weeping, whose plot revolves around a poem by WB Yeats, was twice broadcast on BBC Radio 4. He qualified as a transformational coach with Animas (accredited by ICF), serves on the faculty of the Therapeutic Writing Institute, and has delivered workshops on Jungian psychology and poetry in the US, UK and Europe.
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